


Snowed in for the Holidays.

by groovymutation



Category: Star Trek AOS
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-31
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:28:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26218654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/groovymutation/pseuds/groovymutation
Summary: I pulled some characters and places from Ex Astra. Honestly I just love the fact that Leonard has probably never seen snow before.





	Snowed in for the Holidays.

Leonard would have thought that on the eve of Christmas Eve, Cadillac would be blanketed under a thick coating of snow. He was however quietly disappointed when they arrived to find the May residence coated in a translucent slop of melting ice.

Leonard had never seen real, proper snow before. Hell, he’d never even really seen a frost. Georgia was always one of two things; hot and dry or humid and wet. Summers seemed to span for months longer than anywhere else he’d ever been and their winters were unpleasantly warm. 

Eve’s mother and brother were away for the holiday, seeking sunnier and no doubt warmer climes on the west coast where there was no cold wind or biting frost and the house had been left to Eve and Leonard since they didn’t have an away mission.

Sliding out of the pickup, Leonard’s feet instantly became submerged in a puddle that almost covered his boots. The air up here was practically Baltic and his teeth chattered like they so often did in the colder months back home in California. 

Kirk had followed them up to Cadillac, bringing Carol along with him to see the beauty of Michigan. Once he’d convinced Carol that Eve’s mother definitely didn’t mind them being there along with Eve’s help, she was more than happy to come along and a lot happier to see something other than the towering structures of the city. 

Spock and Uhura were having their own Christmas somewhere on the East coast with plans to spend New Year in Times Square. Every time Eve thought about Spock in Times Square watching the ball drop, she had to laugh a little to herself.

Jim loved Christmas and everything about it. From the snow to the tree, to the lights and the presents, Jim didn’t skimp on Christmas cheer; he was even wearing an ugly Christmas sweater to keep out the chill in the air that consisted of a reindeer with a red pompom for a nose.

“I thought you said there’d be snow?” Jim pouted at Eve as they hauled their cases out of their respectful vehicles.

“I said there might be,” she answered. “I didn’t say for definite.”

Carol laughed quietly as Jim pouted a little more before she gently kissed his cheek and followed Eve and Leonard up the porch steps, taking care not to take a trip on the mushy ice that was sliding from the wooden awning. 

The house was cold and undecorated; Eve had asked her mother not to decorate knowing that Jim would enjoy putting up the tree and the trimmings and as she pointed out the staircase to Carol and told her to pick any of the two rooms left on the third floor, Leonard made straight for the fireplace and started a fire that warmed the room. 

Eve hauled the cases up the stairs and hauled the tree back down that her mother had left in her room with a box of trimmings that Carol followed her with. They’d brought their presents with them and they sat on the table in a neat pile of gold, red and blue wrapping along with gifts for Eve and Leonard from Eve’s mother and brother. 

Jim was practically brimming with glee when Eve placed the boxed tree in front of him and Carol set the box beside it. Tinsel poured over the sides in silvers and reds and as Jim began to unpack the ornaments and lights, he pulled Leonard down beside him to help whilst Eve lead Carol into the kitchen to make drinks.

Within a matter of minutes Leonard could smell the scent of orange and cinnamon infused with hot chocolate and any fury he had at untangling the damn lights melted away as the smell warmed him up along with the heat from the fire at his back.

“This is really great,” Jim said as he marvelled at several transparent baubles with glitter in them. “Just a shame the others couldn’t make it.”

“They had their reasons,” Leonard answered with a smile. “Least we get to spend it together with Eve and Carol.”

Jim’s lips spread into a warm smile as the girls came back into the living space. The tree stood in its stand, bare of decorations and bland in comparison to everything else in the room. Jim had a lapful of ornaments and Leonard was half tangled in lights that were knotting around his arms and fingers. 

Carol kissed Jim’s forehead affectionately and placed a mug of cocoa beside him before she sat in front of him with her own and helped him detangle the tinsel. Eve kissed Leonard’s cheek and placed his cocoa on the floor beside him before she sat by the tree in front of him and began to untangle him from the lights with a smile on her face. 

The room was warming and glowing from the light of the fire and once the ornaments and lights were ready to hang, Eve played some Christmas music from the speakers on her PADD and sang along wonderfully as the others listened with smiles on their faces.

‘Sleigh bells ringing, are you listening? / in the lane, snow is glistening / a beautiful sight, we’re happy tonight / walkin’ in a winter wonderland.’

“Apart from it’s not much of a winter wonderland,” Leonard gave a small laugh as he helped Jim hang the tinsel. 

“More winter, less wonderland,” Jim agreed but he was smiling too. “But it definitely feels like Christmas.”

With the tinsel hung, Leonard helped Carol to hang the lights as Eve and Jim started to hang the ornaments. Some were tiny, glittered baubles that shimmered in the firelight; some were translucent and partly filled with glitter that twinkled when the ornament was shook. There were small wooden angels in satin gowns, nutcracker princes with moveable arms, tiny presents wrapped in shining, coloured foils complete with bows, and small robins made with real feathers and Jim marvelled at each and every one of them as he hung them with care.

It was Eve who laid her hands on the final ornament; a large, silver star for the top of the tree that was at least a foot and a half out of her reach. Leonard gave her one single look and before any words dropped out of her mouth, he had her on his shoulders and she was giggling like she used to back in the days when they first dated. 

Jim wrapped his arms around Carol as Eve steadily placed the star atop the tree before Leonard put her down and flicked the switch for the lights that glowed in a soft white, refracting from the tinsel and the ornaments that adorned the tree. 

Carol and Jim collected the gifts from the table, laying them one by one at the foot of the tree as Eve put away the boxes that had contained the trimmings and the tree. With a final look at their masterpiece, all four of them collapsed onto the sofas to see what Christmas nonsense was on the television; Carol and Jim curled together on one, Eve and Leonard slumped together on the other.

Before bed that night Eve received a call from Gaila and Kirk called Spock, both messages containing the phrase ‘happy holidays.’

Bidding goodnight on the landing of the third floor, Carol and Jim went to one room and Eve and Leonard retreated to Eve’s room, cuddling together under the warmth of the extra blankets atop the bed.

-

Leonard awoke first on the morning of Christmas Eve and padded down into the kitchen bleary eyed with sleep and barefoot to make his usual morning coffee. With the fire nothing but cinders in the hearth, the room had chilled considerably and even under his long sleeved top that he’d slept in he could feel his arms prickly with goose pimples. 

Rubbing at his eyes, Leonard pulled open the fridge for the milk as he flicked on the kettle. Turning back to the work surface, he lifted his hazel eyes to the window that overlooked the porch and the rolling field that was the May’s back yard.

His had skittered across the surface knocking the teaspoon to the floor that landed with a noisy clatter; still, the kitchen was too far from the third floor for any of the others to hear the teaspoon, but they sure as hell heard Leonard’s frantic yelling.

“Evangeline!” he yelled.

Eve had cocooned herself in the sheets in Leonard’s absence but she could still hear his southern tone come roaring up three floors. She rolled over, overshot the edge of the bed and landed with a painful thud on the fluffy rug by her bed with her legs still tangled in the sheets.

She heard her name again, this time louder and more pressing as she registered the fact that Leonard might be in some sort of trouble. Pulling herself out of the sheets and forgetting her robe, she stumbled out of the room at the same time as Jim who gave her an odd look before they came bounding down the stairs, bare feet on the hollow wood as Carol came after them in no evident rush to be anywhere.

She’d already looked out of the window and put two and two together, whereas Eve and Jim in all their worry about Leonard had not paid an inch of attention to anything else. 

They almost fell down the second set of stairs before they threw themselves around the banister, through the lounge and into the kitchen where Leonard was staring, wide eyed, out of the kitchen window with the kettle long since boiled.

Leonard’s dark hair stuck out at unruly angles and his blue plaid pyjama bottoms were creased and shrouding his bare feet. He looked over his shoulder at his concerned best friend and girlfriend as Carol stood behind them, arms folded and smiling ever so slightly.

“It snowed,” Leonard pointed out of the window without turning back to look.

Jim’s eyes lit up like the lights on the tree as he threw himself beside his best friend and Eve rolled her eyes with a deep sigh as she ran her hands through her bed head and padded across the cold kitchen floor to Leonard’s other side to see. 

She expected a light dusting and the soil of the field to still be visible or at least coated with brown snow, but the whole thing was covered in pure, soft white and it was still coming down. Several inches coated the floor and Eve could tell because the first few steps on the porch were completely gone from sight. 

Glancing upwards she saw Leonard’s gleeful expression before Jim parted from his side and darted back up the stairs like his backside was on fire. Eve caught Carol shaking her head with a smile before she followed after him, leaving her standing with Leonard who was still watching the snow fall.

His arm curled around her middle, hand resting on her hip as she leant her head back against his shoulder and watched the snow fall in the reflection of his hazel eyes.

“I bet we could go skating on the lake,” she said. “It looks pretty damn cold.”

“Skatin’?” Leonard tore his eyes from the white world and frowned at Eve who was still looking up at him. “We don’t got skates.”

“Living around Lake Cadillac in the winter, you don’t need them,” she smiled. “Normal shoes are just fine. You wanna go make a snowman? Pelt Jim with some snowballs?”

Leonard was gone from the room before the last syllable had left Eve’s lips, his morning coffee left behind along with his girlfriend who was shaking her head as she followed after him.

They bundled up in jeans and boots, jumpers, jackets and scarves along with gloves and hoods before they stepped out into the whitened world. Jim tore off into the woods and down the path that lead to the lake, cutting a jagged path of snow as he went before there was a strangled cry and a quiet thump somewhere down the path that indicated he’d fallen.

Quickly after, a laugh had followed and he was off once again. 

Leonard walked hesitantly, like a newborn deer finding its legs and Carol and Eve walked a little behind him, staying out of his way less he fall and drag one of them down along with him. His feet slipped and tripped on the ice that had been the wet puddles on the drive when they’d arrived and he wavered and stumbled on the frozen mud path made more treacherous by Jim’s frantic footprints as he’d run through the woods.

“Hey, Bambi,” Eve called ahead to Leonard who’d just about found his feet. “Go see if you can find Jim.”

Eve calling his name had caused him to trip and he was soon on his ass, chest deep in the crisp white snow as Eve and Carol doubled over laughing. Leonard looked surprised, as though he couldn’t work out how he’d come to be on his backside before Carol stepped over his outstretched legs to follow Jim’s frenetic footsteps.

“I fell and it’s cold,” Leonard was grinning from ear to ear as Eve stood in front of him and offered him her hand. 

The snow was still falling, but a little lighter now and flakes of it stuck to strands of her loose, dark hair as it slithered out from under her hood. The cold made her face paler and her eyes were strikingly green in comparison just as Jim’s and Carol’s were unnaturally blue. Her lips were a little chapped and perfectly pink and her fingers wriggled in a black, knitted gloved hand that was still held out to him.

“Well, it is snow, Bambi,” she smiled pulling him up, careful not to trip herself before he took off ahead again. “What did you expect? For it to burn your ass like hot coals?”

She wasn’t sure if it was the name or the sarcasm that earned her a face full of snow courtesy of Leonard’s quite frankly terrible snowball making skills, but she got it either way. She wiped the sopping cold mush from her face with a catatonic look on her face.

She shot off after him and years of playing in the snow with her brother as kids gave her the advantage over Leonard; she could run, really, properly run as he tried to hurry off out of her way, but his feet couldn’t grasp how deep the snow was or how slippery it was beneath and in less than a minute he was on his face in a small clearing as Eve tackled him and collapsed on top of him.

Between the trees to their right, they could hear Carol and Jim laughing and feet crunching through snow as they ran, but Leonard was more concerned with the woman laid on top of him, jade green eyes peering out from under the hem of her hood.

Her gloved hands grasped at the woollen scarf around Leonard’s neck and pulled it away from his warm skin. The cold licked at his exposed skin, sending a tremor of cold through his body before Eve placed her lips to his now cold neck, the warmth of her lips leaving a tingle on his neck like a stinging blister.

His hands rested comfortably on her hips before he pulled off his gloves and submerged his bare hands in the snow. She gave him a puzzled look but when he flipped them over, pinned her into the snow and worked his hands up under her coat and shirt she shrieked with laughter as the touch of his cold hands sent a shock through her body. 

He almost clamped a hand over her mouth as he remembered they were here with Jim and Carol, but their laughter had died out and no footsteps were heard; if Leonard knew Jim, and he did, they’d be off doing their own thing too no doubt. 

Eve tugged off her own gloves and tossed them aside before her hands reached up and pushed Leonard’s hood down, exposing his unruly dark hair. Her hands slid through it with ease and she drew him closer to her, his arms wrapping around her as they rolled in the snow, giggling like teenagers between kissing as their frozen hands wandered and palmed at bare warm skin nestled under their layers of clothing.

They kissed until their lips were chapped and sore from the cold, until their fingertips and toes were to the point of freezing right off and until their soft touches felt like stinging burns before they decided to call it a day and head back to the house. 

They were sodden with snow, noses red and skin practically translucent when they stripped out of their snow clad things and into something warmer. Eve favoured a deep blue jumper with a Nordic Christmas design in white and Leonard favoured a jumper in a similar shade decorated with little snowmen.

Carol and Jim were already nestled together on the sofa, buried under two blankets and sleeping soundly. As Leonard made cocoa in the kitchen, Eve tucked the blanket tighter around them before she joined him.

“You like the snow then, huh?” she asked as she slid herself onto the work surface and watched Leonard busy around with mugs and spoons.

“Yeah,” he gave a breathy laugh, lips pulled into a soft smile before he looked up to Eve and pushed himself between her knees, palms resting at her hips as she locked her arms loose around his neck. “It’s pretty fun.”

“Well,” Eve studied one of the snowmen on Leonard’s sleeve before she met his eyes and locked her legs around his middle. “I did have a lot of fun in the snow.”

Leonard smiled enough to show a little tooth and Eve laughed quietly, careful not to wake the sleeping couple on the sofa before Leonard placed a soft, warm kiss to her lips.

He knew then that his first time seeing proper, white snow was going to be his favourite time of ever seeing snow.


End file.
